Underground Gibraltar

The Goats Hair Twin Caves are a pair of sea ‘twin caves’ situated on the eastern side of Gibraltar. This name was given to them by explorers seeing it was a constant goatherd refuge in the 19th century and therefore due to the large amount of Goats Hair found attached to the cave walls. This sites original name however is ‘Sewell’s Fig Tree Caves’ after Captain Sewell who incidentally was also the discoverer of what is now often referred to as ‘Cave S’ or ‘Sewell’s Cave’.
In 1867 these caves were explored and partly excavated by Captain Brome, a well-known explorer of Gibraltar's caves at the time.
One of these caves was then heavily excavated and emptied of all deposits by the Gibraltar cave research group, led by George Palao in November 1969 and reaching the caves bedrock in June 1970.
During these excavations, there was the discovery of a ‘prehistoric ceremonial burial’ on the northern wall of one of the two caves revealing a human skeleton surrounded by various pottery vessels, bone pendants, flint blades, armlets and anklets. There are descriptions of this excavation and the findings but sadly there is no record of these finds having ever been deposited within the Gibraltar Museum and therefore to this day, there is no trace of this important piece of Gibraltar's heritage.